Customer Reviews

Knoxville Summer of 1915

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the CD that made me fall in love with Dawn Upshaw's singing. I had heard her before and admired her work, but this disc made me a real fan. As it's one of her early recordings, her voice is somewhat "fuller" than on later work; she later started moving the voice "forward," simplifying the sound. Either way, her immense talent for communicating the essence of the text is the outstanding aspect of all her work. It's amazing how she can sound angry, desperate, hopeful, melancholic, all while producing a beautiful sound and tackling all the vocal challenges of the music she's singing. She inhabits the characters, the narrators, of each of the pieces on this disc, and makes it more than just a collection of songs or arias.

I want to make special mention of the Harbison _Mirabai Songs_, as it seems to have been maligned somewhat in other reviews here. This was the work that most kept me coming back to this disc when I first bought it. I think it is a masterpiece, and one of Harbison's best and most important works. (Apparently I'm not alone in my admiration of the piece, because I've heard it on a number of live concerts in recent years, so it seems to be having a successful performance life.) Harbison's song cycle is by turns exciting, sensual, driving, longing, beautiful. The orchestration for the small ensemble is masterful (as Harbison's efforts at scoring always are), and Upshaw expresses all of Mirabai's complex emotions enchantingly.

The _Rake's Progress_ aria also deserves individual comment. In this engrossing example of Stravinsky's neoclassical style, Upshaw assumes Anne's air of fierce determination, and brings the disc to an absolutely thrilling climax on a concluding high C.

All of the music on this terrific CD is very accessible, and the performances are stellar. The recorded sound is very clear and immediate, as one would expect from Nonesuch. It's one of my favorite discs in my entire collection, and would probably be so for the Harbison and Stravinsky alone.

Dawn Upshaw has a beautiful, natural voice and superb phrasing and diction. I've heard everything on this album sung by other performers (like Battle) and they come off sounding forced next to this recording. Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is one of my favorite pieces; great text, beautifully integrated music. I can't count the number of times I've put this album into my CD player on repeat. For anyone who isn't a fan of classical vocal music because they think singers always sound too weird, buy this album. You'll understand how it's supposed to be.

I have had this disc for years, and I'm more impressed with it as the years roll by. I bought it for Barber's "Knoxville, Summer of 1915" which is a glorious piece of music caught here in a luminous performance. I didn't initially warm up to the Harbison songs, but they have grown on me over the years to the point that I listen to them far more often than the Barber now. I think it just took me a while to absorb Harbison's style and understand how deftly and ingeniously he uses it to take the listener into Mirabai's world. Not to be missed!

Extraordinary!! This has got to be the definitive Knoxville--rich, touching, elegant and as close to perfect as it can probably ever be. Upshaw has the perfect voice for this work, and she gives it all the loving attention that it requires. This is a performance of Knoxville that will make you weak in the knees. For the Knoxville alone, buy this disc....twice! There is, however, just a little bit of downside here. The other works on this disc just aren't very captivating.

Dawn Upshaw's voice is perfect for twentieth century classical music. The Barber is beautiful, I like the Harbison Mirabai Songs, but my favorite piece on the album is the Stravinsky No Word from Tom. This album was recorded twenty years ago, so it's a young Dawn Upshaw. Her voice may be richer and more mature now, but the lightness and clarity of her flexible voice is thrilling. There are other recordings of Barber, Menotti, and Stravinsky, but as far as I know this is the only recording of the Mirabai Songs.

People are always saying that they find a particular piece of music is "haunting." For me Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" is such a work. Dawn Upshaw's reading of this great American masterwork is the best I have yet heard. She won her first Grammy Award for this recording - and deservedly so. If you're a fan of either Upshaw or Barber you'll want to add this beautiful CD to your collection.

One has to be full of admiration for the efforts of Ms. Upshaw to use her talent to promote "modern" classical music. Sometimes it works fantastically as the Barber piece in this recording, sometimes the results are uneven, no fault of Ms Uspshaw, as in Mirabai songs here too. Barber's Knoxville: summer of 1915 is a very intriguing piece. Prose set to music. It works very well but one wonders how did that ever happen. Here Ms. Uspshaw makes us stop wondering and just relax and enjoy it. The mark of great artistry. And the intelligence of Mr. Zinman in understanding the modern musical language has to be commended. A great team. Too bad that one has to take off a star since the choices of works for this CD is not the best and somewhat detract from each other. Yet, just for the Barber and Stravinsy pieces, this is a must have CD.

That's how I feel about Miss Upshaw. There is something so natural about her singing. Art that conceals art. This is a collection of brilliant 20th century music, some unfamiliar, some recorded many times. All these performances are top notch. My only quibble is that in "Knoxville" her diction is a bit less than clear, certainly less so than that in Eleanor Steber's classic recording. You'll love the Harbison. And the Menotti is so sly, you'll laugh.

'Knoxville: Summer of 1915' is a performance of a selection of operatic pieces by Americans such as Samuel Barber or Europeans transplanted to the United States, such as Igor Stravinsky. Ms. Upshaw shines with material, which is good for her, since she is just slightly out of her league with the material covered by the likes of Renee Flemming on the operatic front and Ute Lemper and Lotte Lenya on the Euro/American popular musical stage.

Like any good sampler, this recording's strongest draw is the fact that it makes one interested in tracking down the complete works by Barber, Menotti, Harbison, and Stravinsky. And, while the package includes all lyrics, everything is in perfectly clear English. A perfect addition to other American classics such as 'Porgy and Bess'.

Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" is one of my favorite pieces of vocal music. Barber's musical setting is incredibly evocative of the lovely words by James Agee from the prologue to his novel, "A Death in the Family" which became the play and subsequent film, "All The Way Home." The music was written for soprano, Eleanor Steber, and if you can find her recording (I have it on an out of print Sony Masterworks Portrait CD) it is worth the search. Also on the Steber disc are other Barber vocal pieces sung by the likes of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Leontyne Price and Martina Arroyo: not too shabby a group! That said, the Upshaw disc is perfectly fine. Her voice sounds pure and sweet and very youthful which is perfect for the narrator's voice-in the novel it is a man remembering his childhood. Why not 5***** then? I truly dislike most of the other music on this disc. Both the Menotti and the Stravinsky arias do not excerpt well and the Harbison is minor stuff, to be sure.